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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425768">What's Strength ?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astre_Red/pseuds/Astre_Red'>Astre_Red</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Drabbles, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 09:15:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,545</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astre_Red/pseuds/Astre_Red</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something to be said, about being the weak one, the small one, the smart but not strong one. There is something to be said, about these people who understand and see things in a different light - not wrong, but different.</p><p>Maybe they tell you that you aren't strong, because your breath comes too short if you run too long, because you can't lift a weapon heavier than your own arm. They call you smart, cunning and even tricky, but never strong.</p><p>But you are strong. Strength isn't something measured by how much you can lift or how long you can hold your tears. It's so much more than that.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What's Strength ?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is something to be said, about being the weak one, the small one, the smart but not strong one. There is something to be said, about these people who understand and see things in a different light - not wrong, but different.</p><p> </p><p>You are smart. You watch and listen things and you understand it, with a speed that alarm others. Sometimes you crave it, that knowledge, you need it just like you need oxygen.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe they tell you that you aren't strong, because your breath comes too short if you run too long, because you can't lift a weapon heavier than your own arm. They call you smart, cunning and even tricky, but never strong.</p><p> </p><p>But you are strong. Strength isn't something measured by how much you can lift or how long you can hold your tears. It's so much more than that.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>You're not stupid, and even less deaf. You hear and understand just fine what the others say about you. They don't really try to hide it.</p><p> </p><p>They whisper, your colleagues, about you. They talk to each other in hushed whispers hidden behind their hands. The nerd, the crazy one, the weak one. Didn't you know ? He still has his hand scythe from the academy days! How disgraceful!</p><p> </p><p>You ignore them. You don't care, or you don't dare to. Caring is what killed you.</p><p> </p><p>No one gets it, because they don't want or need to. Why are you so focused on these experiments? There's so much more outside. Why aren't you training more? Don't you want to fight?</p><p> </p><p><em>Don't you want to win?</em> A silver haired reaper had asked you once, not out of disgust or disdain, but out of curiosity- or maybe boredom. You didn't know him enough yet- but you will. You had smiled.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I want to know.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He had blinked. <em>Why?</em></p><p> </p><p><em>Because I want to</em>. And why should there be another reason?</p><p> </p><p>Knowing, knowing, knowing. You seek the truth like a dying man seek water in a desert. Desperately, determinately, obsessively. You never stop, and the whispers only fill your resolution. No one is waiting for you, and no one ever will. This is not about you.</p><p> </p><p>A silver haired reaper wants to know for the sake of love, or what he thinks is love. Selfishness, desire, regret. He does not seek the truth, not when is is so ugly. He does not accept it.</p><p> </p><p>Truth, truth, truth. This is what you want, what you need. So what if it is ugly? What if it hurts, what if it burns and destroys the hearts of so many, reapers and humans, dead and living? Truth just is.</p><p> </p><p>There's a boy with an eyepatch who hid the truth again and again until it came smiling in front of him. There's a demon who always speaks the truth. There's a girl broken by the truth.</p><p> </p><p>There's a silver haired reaper who looked at the truth and refused it. You are here to stop him, but you're not doing it for him. You do this for your own sake.</p><p> </p><p>(At least that's what you tell yourself.)</p><p> </p><p>He looks at you, you and your noodle arms and small weapon and weak throw. He looks at you and laughs, like so many before. He smiles, all teeth, and shows you his weapon. A threat, a warning, a reminder.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I am strong, you are weak. Do not forget it.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>But this is where he is wrong. <em>You are strong</em>. You have the strength to glare back, to throw words like some throw knifes, but your words are even sharper. They cut the soul instead of the skin, and you know that it is far more deadly that some think.</p><p> </p><p>You are not afraid. You do not shake in front of this legend, and you never will. He could cut you to shreds with his scythe, but you can hurt him with your words and mocking voice. And he knows it. So he laughs and glares but he doesn't touch you. Not yet.</p><p> </p><p>He was your friend, once, or maybe he wasn't. He is stronger and bitter and he hates you, and it's been half-a-century but it still hurts. But that's not what matters.</p><p> </p><p>You are Othello, and no one, not even this ghost of a past better forgotten, will make you flinch.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They call you Loony. You don't call them anything but their names.</p><p> </p><p>They laugh at you behind their hands, they laugh and mock your strange earrings and stranger beliefs. Nargles, Loony? How did you even manage to end in Ravenclaw?</p><p> </p><p>The Hat must have been at a loss. You don't belong with us. You don't belong anywhere.</p><p> </p><p>In a way, they are right. You don't belong with them, with their mean smirks and cruel words and cold eyes. You don't deserve this. They don't deserve you, and you never answer their taunts. Why would you bother with people so much infected by Nargles? They have already so much to deal with. You just watch them and smile.</p><p> </p><p>And that scares them, you know. You scare them, with your dreamy eyes and beliefs and fleeting smile. Their words hurt you, but they don't break you, and it scares them. You scare them.</p><p> </p><p><em>You ought to have been in Gryffindor</em>. A redhaired girl once said to you when you smiled and waved at a crowd who was laughing at you. You had laughed, and told her that her jokes were delightful.</p><p> </p><p>Creativity, intelligence, ingenuity. You have more friends in thestrals than in humans, you understand death when others shy away from it, and you welcome it with the same smile you give to life.</p><p> </p><p>You don't belong in Ravenclaw, they say. Someone who believes in the impossible does not belong in the House of Rowena.</p><p> </p><p>You laugh.</p><p> </p><p>Intelligence isn't just books, and strength isn't just magic. It's so much more than that. You believe in things, nothing and everything, and it is your strength. You don't care what other people say, friends or foes. The brightest witch of her age huffs at you and calls you Loony, and the heroes of this story don't spare you a second glance- not yet at last. Your redhaired friend, twelve years old and words of a dead boy in her ears, had sneered and said that you were stupid to believe in things when you couldn't see their brain. Years later she would ask you to describe these impossible creatures to you.</p><p> </p><p>You remember the ground shaking and your mother's scream abruptly cut off. You remember that sometimes screams are better than silence.</p><p> </p><p>You pet creatures of death and talk to them like you talk to humans. You look at the sun and moon and wish them a good day and night. You smile at the stars. When your spells don't shine as brightly as they should, you caress your wand and prepare a cup of tea. Your patronus is the brightest of the DA.</p><p> </p><p>You are Luna Lovegood, and you are one of the strongest witch of your age.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>You are strong.</p><p> </p><p>It's just a fact. You are bulky and big and people sometimes shy away when they see you. It's just in your blood, and you are proud of it, proud of this heritage. You are taller than everyone you know before you reach eighteen, and it fills you with pride. You are strong, it is a given. But that's not all you are.</p><p> </p><p>You're proud of your strength, you show it off with a smile and arrogant eyes, but you can't help but think that it would be nice if they could see beyond that. You didn't live so long because of your muscles, and you did not win only with them. You are so much more than that.</p><p> </p><p>When they congatulate you after your victory, after you managed to defeat the Ultimate Being, they admire your strength and muscles and don't think further that that. Your grandmother speaks of your grandfather and how much you two are similar, and you can't help but feel bitter, just a little because you're not like him, and you wish they could see that.</p><p> </p><p>Here's the catch, what they don't understand : you did not win because of your muscles and big arms. You did not even win because of hamon, or because of your friend's dying gift.</p><p> </p><p>You won because you're sharp, because you think before tackling a problem, because you think<em> can I do this</em> before <em>I will do this</em>. You have your brain, your breath and your made-up plans, and you make it work. That's just who you are. You're a tricky bastard, and that's your greatest strength.</p><p> </p><p>You're strong, but you're also smart, and they both matter as much as the other. You fought monsters and won, but you didn't win because you were strong, at least not in the way they think. You won because you are smart.</p><p> </p><p>You are Joseph Joestar, and not even the Ultimate Being match your wits.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>You cannot throw your weapon far, your breath comes too short if you run too long, you cannot lift a weapon heavier than your own arm, and your opponents are monsters far stronger and scarier then you will ever be.</p><p> </p><p>So what?</p><p> </p><p>You are strong.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you liked it ! Which one was your favorite ? Tell me in the comments !</p><p>(also, help. I need another title)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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